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Internet marketing or online marketing as it is often called is the process of advertising your products or service on the Internet. More and more businesses are advertising there brand and there products or service online, even if you are not going to offer anything on your website it is good to have a ‘web presence’. Internet marketing has a lot of advantages and disadvantages when compared to real life marketing, or offline marketing.
Advantages of Internet Marketing The main advantage Internet marketing has is that you can reach a global audience on a considerably lower budget. This has allowed smaller businesses to level the playing field between them and there huge rivals. Thanks to contextual advertising businesses are now able to target very specific niche markets, which in turn yields a higher ROI (Return on investment). Internet marketers also have the ability to track every little detail of there online marketing campaigns. Not only can you track how many people have visited your website and where they come from, now thanks to Google Analytics you can track how long they spent on your website, what links they clicked, if they are a new or returning user and much more, all with a few clicks of a button! Another advantage of Internet marketing is that while you and your employees are not working, for example sleeping. Your website is still there promoting your business twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Disadvantages of Internet Marketing Although the advantages seem to be endless there are also some disadvantages. One of the most important disadvantages to be aware of is that Internet users display a much shorter attention span, what this means is that if your business can’t offer what the customer is looking for within the couple of seconds you are unlikely to convert them into a buyer or client. Just as it is costly to go out and buy a company office or factory, it can be an expensive initial cost to have a website built for you, it is not unlikely that thousands will be spent before your website even reaches the Internet. This is because before you can even begin marketing your website you will need to hire a designer and a website programmer to make your website fully functional for Search Engines and site users. Once your website is fully functional, only then can you start to promote your website. What types of Internet marketing techniques are there? So your website has been beautifully designed and programmed so even a first time Internet user can use it, now you’re ready to get down and dirty with the marketing! Below are the four most common methods of advertising: - Search Engine Optimization – Commonly referred to as SEO by the pro’s, search engine optimization is the technique of understanding what search engines look for in websites and adjusting your websites to suit, if done correctly this should lead to higher rankings for your target keywords which ultimately equates to more traffics and sales. A good SEO campaign can take months or even years, but when done properly it can save tons of money on paid advertising.
- Pay Per Click – Abbreviated to PPC is basically a much quicker solution than SEO, but it can also cost a lot more. How pay per click works is that you place your advertisements on other peoples website, when one of there users clicks one of those links they are taken to your website, and you are charged for that click. PPC is perfect for when you don’t have time to run a SEO campaign but it can be extremely expensive too, with some clicks costing up to $50!
- Banner advertisements – Banner advertisement work just like PPC, except instead of paying on how many clicks your advertisement receives, the cost is calculated by how many people see your advertisement. In the online word these views are called impressions, considering the standard banner receives thousands of impressions the formula for calculating cost is called CPM(where M is the roman numeral for 1000) so CPM equals cost per thousand impressions.
- News Letters – In both the online and offline world it’s a fact that in most industries its much easier to sell a product to a current customer than try and find new customers. Newsletters are the perfect way to do that, building a newsletter is as simple as asking your customers if they would like to subscribe to your e-mail updates, if there answer is yes, take there name and e-mail. Now whenever you release a new product or promotional offer you can alert all your current customers with a quick e-mail. This is also referred to as e-mail marketing.
- Affiliates – Once you become familiar with Internet marketing, you will realise that there are people who can sell your products much better than you can, by offering these people a commission for every sale you make you can potentially increase your sales exponentially. It also saves you money on other forms of advertising.
With the Internet reaching billions of people it is important for you and your company to not only a get a slice of that pie, but the biggest slice possible by using the previously mentioned advertising techniques.
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